Starting to Collapse
by fortescue
Summary: The story of Heloise Eileen Potter is a long one. With Lou Ellen, however, almost nothing is known about her. No one ever knew she was straddling the line of two worlds, that she was the bridge that kept them both together and apart. Fem!Harry(Lou). One-shots throughout years.
1. Divine

_They witnessed her destruction,  
Then were left to wonder why,  
She saw nothing but darkness,  
Though stars shone in her eyes,  
But maybe they'd forgotten  
When they failed to see the cracks,  
That a star's light shines the brightest  
When it's starting to collapse._

~ e.h.

* * *

"_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...born to parents who have thrice defied him, born in the month of the conqueror...and the Dark Lord shall mark divine as his equal, but divine will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hands of the other, for neither can live while the other survives...the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born in the month of the conqueror..."_

The words of the prophecy echoed throughout his head. A sense of dread and guilt filled him whole as their savior walked up to the stool obediently. She kept her chin up high, so her sharply aristocratic features that had survived through her abusive years at the Dursleys' could be seen. Once McGonagall dropped the Sorting Hat on her head, he could just barely see the legendary scar cut crudely into her high forehead, a lightning bolt, the Potter rune for power. Her eyes, however, stood out against the shadows of the Sorting Hat, a mesmerizing shade of emerald that would be sure to haunt the potions master for the next seven years.

_Heloise Eileen Potter_

Albus Dumbledore, admittedly, had no clue as to what the prophecy meant. _Divine will have power the Dark Lord knows not. _Hestia Jones had been the one to suggest _the month of the conqueror _as July, which was named, according to Muggles, after a Roman conqueror and dictator, Julius Caesar. But as for divine... Eleven years later, and he still hadn't a clue. Lily seemed to have known, as well as Emmeline Vance, and Hestia Jones, Heloise's godmother. They absolutely refused and denied anything he said, Emmeline harshly considering this was after the death of one of her closest friends and fiancee, Caradoc Dearborn, and Hestia still in hysterical tears for losing the protection of her goddaughter to Muggles. The only connection Dumbledore could think of between the three was Heloise and that Emmeline and Lily were muggle-borns.

The only reason for Dumbledore bringing their blood-statuses into the prophecy was because of his mother, who was a muggle-born herself. In his childhood, Ariana had loved the stories of Greek mythological deities, even after the accident, she would love to sit with her mother or Aberforth and listen to myths of demigods and the Olympians. Kendra Dumbledore always seemed keen to read the stories of the minor deities, especially Hecate.

_She's the goddess of magic_, she had said whenever any of them questioned why she was her favorite. _She deserves more credit then she's receiving._

Dumbledore remembered the look of pride that would cross across his mother's face whenever she spoke of Hecate, and the disgust in her eyes when they mentioned an Olympian. _They're too proud, thinking they can decide who is important enough to be an Olympian, who deserves a throne on Olympus and who doesn't._

"GRYFFINDOR!" The Sorting Hat screamed into the silent hall, causing the people who hadn't been solely focused for the last few minutes to jump in their seats.

Dumbledore couldn't help but think of James on his Sorting as the metamorphmagus strutted over to the ecstatic Lions confidently, grinning at the way the Weasley twins were shouting deliriously "WE GOT POTTER!" repeatedly and striking up a conversation with the students surrounding her.

_Just like her father_, Dumbledore inwardly sighed as he smiled reassuringly at Heloise, who was looking his way. _Just like a divine._


	2. Replica

It was three months after the Sorting of the first years when Professor McGonagall sent Fay Dunbar to locate her errant dorm mate, Heloise, and bring her to the Quidditch. She was late for the first game of the season - Gryffindor vs. Slytherin - which was causing the Gryffindors to be very agitated. Even before McGonagall entrusted her with the seemingly impossible task, Fay had been searching high and low when she couldn't find her best friend in their dormitory that morning or during breakfast. The Girl-Who-Lived was nowhere to be found - not in the courtyard where she was often competing against the Weasley twins in who was the better prankster, nor was she in the kitchens for her missed breakfast - so Fay assumed she were up in the astronomy tower, her place of comfort where she could hide away from the publicity. Fay knew that Sinistra was her favorite professor.

She also knew, despite their differences, they would always be best friends. They were opposites mainly in appearances though. Fay was lean and tan, with big blue eyes, somewhat broad brows and oval face. She had brown hair that lay straight at her shoulder blades and was always clipped back. She was neat, orderly, if not a little shameless and rather slack. Heloise exuded confidence in waves. She had a way about her that caused others to take her seriously, despite a weakness for tricks and mythical tales. While Fay plodded through texts, straining to memorize and categorize notes, Heloise could answer a question with ease and she almost never took notes.

Fay stalked through the hall, grumbling under breath. _Damnit, Potter. Where are you...where are you..._

Just as she was about to turn the corner, something about thirty feet away from her caught her eye. She whirled around, and to her surprise, she saw a grand door elaborated with designs carved into the wood. She ran over, her footfalls echoing around the hall, and traced her hands along the symbols etched into the rim and realized that they were runes. She knew this from when she watched her cousin, Katie Bell, struggle with her Ancient Runes homework.

Fay dug her nails into the biggest symbol, which was a striped snake with three heads, all facing different directions.

_Runespore._ Three. She underestood that much.

All thoughts of Quidditch vanished from Fay's mind.

She cracked the door open, and immediately she saw she was in a living room. She knitted her brows at the comfortable scene and slipped inside. She heard Heloise's voice, and Fay found it suspicious that she would speak to herself. She walked cautiously across the plush carpet until it met with tile. There, in the kitchen, Heloise stood in front of a aureate intricate frame that held the magical portrait of an elderly couple. Today, Heloise's hair was a fiery red that could beat any Weasley's and full of curls, and Fay could see as she turned that her currently hazel eyes shone gold in the lighting.

The woman in the portrait had her fine blonde hair pulled up into a bun that sat neatly atop her head and held together by a neatly drawn green bow. Her beautiful kaleidoscope eyes glittered affectionately, though her hands fluttered uncertainly at the pearl necklace around her long neck. The man looked amused as he guffawed heartily at something Heloise said. He ran a calloused hand through his gravity-defying black hair and then down his narrow face, hazel eyes glowing with prideful awe.

"Lily will be rolling in her grave," the woman muttered. A small smile played around her glossed lips.

"Who cares!" the man laughed. "You really are a Potter, girlie! Youngest Seeker in the century! You hear that, Dorea? First, you break the tradition of the first-born always - _always_, I say! - being boys, and now you're a first year with one of the finest brooms out there and the best spot on the Quidditch team!"

"I should get going, Charlus," Heloise informed, grinning widely.

"Grandpa," he corrected sternly, waggling a finger at her.

"Stop it, Charlie," the woman - Dorea - chided. "Can't you see Lou is under enough pressure as it is?"

"But can't you see?" he insisted. "_She's just like James!_ Yes, she has your ability and looks like you, but you have to admit that she has the same personality, same charm, same almost everything like James."

Dorea Potter rolled her eyes. "Ignore him," she advised to Heloise. "He has an ego bigger than the pride of the Ministry, just because_ he's a Potter_. At least you didn't inherit his ugly mug, though." She jerked a thumb to Charlus, who cried out dramatically in protest. "And thank Morgana you have Lily's brains. We don't need another reckless Marauder walking around, now do we?"

As Heloise turned toward the doorway, Fay stole away quietly, careful to hide her presence away from Heloise, and fled out the door. She sprinted down the empty halls once again until she reached the courtyard, where some of the student body was still gathered. She leaned up against one of the columns and put her hands on her knees, winded.

_She'll come down soon enough_, Fay tried to reassure herself as she stood up and walked over to Susan Bones. _She'll use one of her secret passageways, because she's 'a Potter after all'._


	3. Desires

Heloise folded her knees up to her chest underneath the Invisibility Cloak, urging herself to look beyond the mirror. The room that she could see out of the corners of her eyes was little more than a haze of shadow, shifting constantly so she couldn't tell if that one object in the corner was an overturned trash bin or Filtch's demonic cat. Her senses dimmed considerably. The ringing silence that had filled the room before was now distant and muddle.

She stared up at the imposing mirror. She couldn't decide whether to be in awe of the reflection it showed her, or to be in agonizing fear.

She was _happy_. She wasn't _broken_. She was _more_ than to what people saw her as a storm with skin.

The figure in the front of the crowd - _herself_ \- was older, and bore an uncanny resemblance to the woman in her dream a few months ago. She didn't recognize half of the people surrounding her, and they were all wearing what looked like camp shirts. But among the crowd of purple and orange, she could make out the the face of Fay, one of her tormenters, Ernie Macmillan, and all the muggle-borns she knew - Hermione Granger, Kenneth Towler, Kevin Entwhistle, Lisa Turpin, Justin Finch-Fletchey, others.

And then her parents. A ruggedly handsome man with eyes just as gray as a mysterious blonde girl's in orange. A scarred man. A young woman with vivid pink hair.

Lily Potter's and her own resemblance to the strange woman in her dreams was so pronounced that Heloise's mind fell into desperate confusion. Years seemed to drop away, and, to her dismay, she didn't know the reason to her sitting in front of the mirror, the place, the time. Incoherent images flashed before her eyes, faded and rippling as if they were underwater. That's how she felt, too; her lungs burned, her throat constricted, her eyes ached, her limbs were numb.

She spotted a looming barrier with words etched onto the border the same as the mirror - _Camp Half-Blood._ There was a large - an _olympic_ \- counsel room with a varying set of twelve thrones and a hearth in the middle. Other scenes flashed by; arenas, amphitheaters, a crystal blue lake.

Heloise sighed deeply and flung her head back. She lied down until she could feel the coldness of the ground piercing through her clothes, and, as she turned her head, she could feel the grooves of the floor biting onto her cheek. She raised her hand as she felt a heavy weight press against her side. Paws dug into her waist, and she heard a motor-like purring as her kneazle nudged his head against her hip. She stuck her hand out from under the Cloak and ran her fingers through the thick mane of white hair around his neck.

"What does this mean, Prometheus?" she asked the Maine Coon kneazle. She opened her eyes. Vibrant green met with burnished gold. Prometheus meowed noisily and jumped onto her thighs. "Great help you are..."

She'll figure the meaning to her desire. Sometime.


	4. Love

**IMPORTANT: i have a new wattpad ( doxycide) where i'll be continuing my stories at. so if you want more of this (with major editing) and more, go over there, please.**

* * *

Heloise Potter knew what love was like.

Love was her dorm mate, Fay Dunbar, dancing with her across the dorm floor, Heloise's own bare feet on her's because Heloise was as short as Fay was tall. Their giggles filling up the quiet in the morning air.

It was the Weasley twins winking lazily at her across the table after Hermione says something particularly _mummish _and Heloise tries to hide her smile.

It was Dudley Dursley sitting on the floor outside Heloise's locked door when she's back from her first trip to Diagon Alley, his thick legs crossed, his back against the wall, waiting until his cousin was ready to come out again.

It was Lavender Brown lending Neville Longbottom her quills and parchment every class, because she knew he would forget, and she never forgot anything. It was Neville 's shy, sad smile in return.

It was Parvarti Patil holding Heloise's hand on the way to the great hall, tugging her gently to dinner, catching her up on everything that had happened that day, because Heloise was tired and hiding from the rumours and whispers about her.

It was Seamus Finnegan handing her a bag with all the worst Bertie Botts on their way to first class, mumbling a "_happy birthday_", trying not to laugh, dropping his forehead on her shoulder and bursting into a fit of giggles.

It was Ron Weasley with cuts on his face and a bruise by his eye, smiling across the table at a pale, exhausted Hermione Granger.

It was Percy Weasley when he found her crying in the library, holding her a little too tightly and awkwardly while she cried over friends she lost over the summer, promising he would fix it, when she knew there wasn't anything to fix anymore.

It was Beckendorf staying up all night with Silena Beauregard after she broke it off with the last boy in a long list of last boys.

It was Katie Gardener laughing so hard at Travis Stoll she spat pumpkin juice on him at dinner, and it was the way he didn't mind he was covered in it, because she was happy with him.

It was Percy Jackson telling Annabeth Chase he was writing home, and that his mum sent her love to all his friends.

It was the way Lou Ellen's heart ached when Thalia didn't write back.

It was Malcolm studying with Lou Ellen in the dusty corners of the Athena Cabin, sweets and books and notes scattered over their table, their heads bent over papers.

It was Luke laughing at her until he fell over, his fancy dress he was tricked into tucked underneath him, his heels wobbly. It was his smile lighting up the atmosphere.

Love was not the way she felt about the boy who finally asked her on a date, even if it was the closest word she could pin on it.

She wasn't sure what_ it _was, but it was something else entirely that filled her up and made everything feel alright again. Heloise Potter knew love, and he was something completely different, and completely wonderful.


End file.
